[Challenge vs Frustration: Bloggin' on Time Limits]

I bought Fallout 1 on Steam a little while ago and the water chip had a time limit so I solved that first before taking on the baddies. Do I understand correctly that in the original version one had to take out the villains before returning with the chip so it was all under the same time limit?

 

Nope. There were two time limits, one for the water chip quest (the one that stayed in the patched game) and one, which was hidden, for the Super Mutant invasion. Super Mutant would gradually invade the civilized outpost and, iirc, they'd manage to find Vault 13 eventually. Players didn't like it, so the team quickly removed that time limit with a patch.

[Wasteland 1 and that Old-School Skill Set Symphony]

Interesting (and charmingly dorky) stuff.

 

I took a much more utilitarian approach to my first playthrough of Wasteland to be honest. I've never really approached videogames this way, I'd more often than not end up too constrained by the dialogue and choices given to me by the developers to enjoy this playstyle. I guess that's why it's possible with the original Wasteland though, since you have to fill so many gaps by yourself and your dialogue options just give vague description of what your character is going to say ("Buy" "sell" etc.)

 

What I'm more interested in, though, is the skill system. Wasteland had undoubtedly some problems with it: it offers too many unbalanced/useless skills and often doesn't explain itself about the intended progression (esp. combat skills are p. bad with that). However, I felt it was mitigated by the fact that you'd really only be picking one point in most of them and they'd grow organically with usage, which I feel is one of the best compromises between learn-by-use and point-based systems I've seen in my gaming "career".

 

Not so sure I enjoy rolling stats though, it's a system that I never particularly enjoyed in pen and paper, and even less in videogames where I'd just end up rerolling until I got optimal stats. Then again, that just might be because I was rolling my characters with an utilitarian approach, rather than with the idea of roleplaying them (and they still all ended up dead so I had to roll another party while Jackie slowly tracked back with their corpses to the ranger HQ).

[Kickstarter and Wasteland 2 Thoughts.]

I never got a change to play Wasteland, but with how you talk about it, it must have been quite the game. I always look forward to a game that tries something new. The only problem is that the game also need to fit some kind of modern conventions in order to remain marketable. I imagine it's the reason series like Fallout and Syndicate have to make a pseudo genre switch. They still keep their overall environment and feel, but they were forced to adapt. How do you think Wasteland would adapt? What modern genre would fit it best?

 

I don't know, the strength of Kickstarter is that you don't have to go through a publisher, and its weakness is that, without a good amount of goodwill, you won't get a big budget, especially not on an RPG (which would require higher budgets, than, say, the point-and-click title Double Fine is working on). When you consider those two things, it actually makes sense to think that inXile's team will go for a similar approach to the original titles.

[If Obsidian + Kickstarter = ?]

Turn-based it's not appreciatively better than real-time, it's just different, and it's generally less served by the market, and really mostly only by indies.

 

Turn-based IS better than Real-Time With Pause, since that started as a compromise on the mechanics to make them more appetizing, and the moment you have to make too many tactical choices, you'll find yourself pausing all the time anyway.. at that point it's just better to have more control, and that's what turn-based gives you.

[If Obsidian + Kickstarter = ?]

Think the original Fallout except with better combat (possibly full-control of your henchmen?) and an original setting.

 

Or do what the **** you want, as long as it's not "yet another action-RPG: Retribution". We're served by the AAA market for that.